8 min
Episode 89: Controlling Your Stress May Include Assessing Your Magnesium Intake Maximum Wellness
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- Self-Improvement
Stress is no stranger to human existence. It’s a normal part of living and functioning in a gravitational state on this planet. But, as Buddha said, “be moderate in all things.” Too much of anything, on a chronic basis, can eventually be deleterious to one’s health.
Hungarian-born Hans Selye MD, Ph.D, the “so-called” father of stress research, developed and implemented his famous concept, “General Adaptive Syndrome (GAS),” a response of the body based on the demands placed on it. The body’s three stage response – alarm, resistance, exhaustion – manifest, as follows, notes Medicalnewstoday.com.
“At the alarm reaction stage, a distress signal is sent to a part of the brain called the hypothalamus. The hypothalamus enables the release of hormones called glucocorticoids. Glucocorticoids trigger the release of adrenaline and cortisol, which is a stress hormone. The adrenaline gives a person a boost of energy” – at cost of raising the heart rate, blood pressure, and blood sugar.
The control mechanism is the autonomic nervous system (ANS) – sympathetic nervous system (SNS) - fight or flight system - and the parasympathetic nervous (PNS) - relaxation or recovery response – all affecting heart rate variability (HRV), what happens between heart beats (R-R interval), resulting from an elevation in the hormone cortisol.
During the resistance stage, which is controlled by the PNS, “the body tries to counteract the physiological changes that happened during the alarm reaction stage,” notes the website.
If the stress gets under control, then the heart rate and blood pressure begin to return to normal. However, if the stressor remains, the body will stay in a state of alert, and stress hormones continue to be produced.
Should the stressor or situation become protracted, then the body goes into the final stage of GAS – exhaustion – depleting its energy resources by continually trying – eventually failing to recover from the initial alarm reaction stage.
Symptoms may manifest in the form of fatigue, depression, anxiety, and a feeling of the inability to cope. That’s when long-term stress may trigger the start of cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, colitis, and other such stress-inflammatory conditions.
According to research – Magnesium Status and Stress: The Vicious Circle Concept Revisited – which appeared in the January 2021 issue of the online, peer-reviewed journal Nutrients, “magnesium is a naturally occurring calcium channel blocker, is involved in the maintenance of electrolyte balance (e.g., regulation of sodium–potassium ATPase activity), and plays a key role in membrane excitability.”
Magnesium, the second most abundant intracellular essential mineral, is a cofactor in hundreds of enzyme processes – specifically protein and nucleic acid synthesis, regulation of metabolic pathways, neuronal transmission, neuromuscular function, and normalization of cardiac rhythm.
The adult human body contains roughly from 21 to 28 grams of magnesium – with 50–60% being stored in the bones, while the remainder is distributed in soft tissues such as muscles.
The study authors, from various medical facilities and universities in France, comment that, “magnesium is also an essential component of the extracellular fluid (ECF) and the cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) in the central nervous system,” with, “only 1% of the total magnesium is extracellular and 0.3% of this circulates in serum in three different forms: Free (unbound; 60%), which represents the biologically active form; albumin-bound (30%); or in a complex with other ions (10%).”
Read the rest on MaxWellNutrition.com.
Stress is no stranger to human existence. It’s a normal part of living and functioning in a gravitational state on this planet. But, as Buddha said, “be moderate in all things.” Too much of anything, on a chronic basis, can eventually be deleterious to one’s health.
Hungarian-born Hans Selye MD, Ph.D, the “so-called” father of stress research, developed and implemented his famous concept, “General Adaptive Syndrome (GAS),” a response of the body based on the demands placed on it. The body’s three stage response – alarm, resistance, exhaustion – manifest, as follows, notes Medicalnewstoday.com.
“At the alarm reaction stage, a distress signal is sent to a part of the brain called the hypothalamus. The hypothalamus enables the release of hormones called glucocorticoids. Glucocorticoids trigger the release of adrenaline and cortisol, which is a stress hormone. The adrenaline gives a person a boost of energy” – at cost of raising the heart rate, blood pressure, and blood sugar.
The control mechanism is the autonomic nervous system (ANS) – sympathetic nervous system (SNS) - fight or flight system - and the parasympathetic nervous (PNS) - relaxation or recovery response – all affecting heart rate variability (HRV), what happens between heart beats (R-R interval), resulting from an elevation in the hormone cortisol.
During the resistance stage, which is controlled by the PNS, “the body tries to counteract the physiological changes that happened during the alarm reaction stage,” notes the website.
If the stress gets under control, then the heart rate and blood pressure begin to return to normal. However, if the stressor remains, the body will stay in a state of alert, and stress hormones continue to be produced.
Should the stressor or situation become protracted, then the body goes into the final stage of GAS – exhaustion – depleting its energy resources by continually trying – eventually failing to recover from the initial alarm reaction stage.
Symptoms may manifest in the form of fatigue, depression, anxiety, and a feeling of the inability to cope. That’s when long-term stress may trigger the start of cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, colitis, and other such stress-inflammatory conditions.
According to research – Magnesium Status and Stress: The Vicious Circle Concept Revisited – which appeared in the January 2021 issue of the online, peer-reviewed journal Nutrients, “magnesium is a naturally occurring calcium channel blocker, is involved in the maintenance of electrolyte balance (e.g., regulation of sodium–potassium ATPase activity), and plays a key role in membrane excitability.”
Magnesium, the second most abundant intracellular essential mineral, is a cofactor in hundreds of enzyme processes – specifically protein and nucleic acid synthesis, regulation of metabolic pathways, neuronal transmission, neuromuscular function, and normalization of cardiac rhythm.
The adult human body contains roughly from 21 to 28 grams of magnesium – with 50–60% being stored in the bones, while the remainder is distributed in soft tissues such as muscles.
The study authors, from various medical facilities and universities in France, comment that, “magnesium is also an essential component of the extracellular fluid (ECF) and the cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) in the central nervous system,” with, “only 1% of the total magnesium is extracellular and 0.3% of this circulates in serum in three different forms: Free (unbound; 60%), which represents the biologically active form; albumin-bound (30%); or in a complex with other ions (10%).”
Read the rest on MaxWellNutrition.com.
8 min